Hudson: Don’t worry … be reasonably happy

Thursday

The thing I love most about the yearly happiness report is that it challenges us as individuals and communities to ask ourselves: are we happy and if so, why? And if not, why not?

“Be happy while you are living, for you are a long time dead” — Scottish proverb

18th out of 157 countries. Really? Is that the best we can do America? Apparently, yes — at least this year, at least when it comes to happiness.

Last week the United Nations released its annual “Worldwide Happiness Report,” an annual survey of 157 nations. Folks are asked to rank their happiness on a scale of 1 to 10: the best life being a 10, the worst a zero. Upwards of 2,000 to 3,000 folks participate from each nation and are also asked to rank their overall happiness with the basic parts of life all humans share: business and economics; citizen engagement; communications and technology; diversity; education and family life; emotional well-being; the environment; food and shelter; government and politics; law and order and safety; health; religion and ethics; transportation; and work.

Hand it to Finland and the Finns, our friends 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, who were number one again this year. Since the report was first issued in 2012, they’ve consistently been in the top rankings, along with their Scandinavian neighbors Denmark and Sweden as well as the Netherlands and Iceland. Those countries all share the distinction of being among the most generous communities when it comes to government promising to provide the basics in life: housing, food, education, child care, health care and employment. True, Scandinavians also pay the highest taxes in the world, but apparently that trade off is acceptable for them not having to worry so much about the things so many of us as Americans certainly angst about. Can I make enough money to support my family? Rent or buy an affordable house or apartment? Will I have health insurance? Can I afford to send my child to college? If I lose my job, how will I get by?

So one conclusion is clear: the higher the level of economic and life security for a person, the happier they will be, which is kind of a no-brainer if we think about it. If you spend all your time scrambling for things like food and shelter or just scrape by each day, barely making ends meet, stress gets very high and then of course, unhappiness follows.

Not that more money alone can buy happiness. A widely cited recent report in the journal Nature Human Behavior, based upon interviews with 1.7 million people in 164 countries, concluded that the happiness of people actually peaks and then levels out at about the $60,000 level, which leads to another conclusion. Happiness is also found in the intangibles of this life. Like love and the depth and quality of our closest relationships. Having work that matters and gives us a purpose. Feeling safe where we live. Trusting the people whom we empower to govern us. Having a vision that life can and will get better. Claiming a faith in a power greater than ourselves and drawing comfort from that belief.

The thing I love most about the yearly happiness report is that it challenges us as individuals and communities to ask ourselves: are we happy and if so, why? And if not, why not? As a person of faith these questions remind me of a wonderful phrase from a familiar prayer, one of the most recognized prayers in all the world, “The Serenity Prayer,” written by Reinhold Niebuhr, as in “God grant me the serenity....” The long version of this prayer, not often cited, prays for this one simple hope: “that I may be reasonably happy in this life.”

Imagine that — being reasonably happy and being happy with that. Not always trying to be amazingly happy, or blissfully happy, or home-run happy. How about “a single up the middle” happy? Or “it’s a beautiful sunrise this morning” happy? Or “my kid brought home for me a beautiful crayon drawing from school today” happy? Or “I made one other person feel loved” kind of happy? Or “I served another and made the world a better place” happy?

Yes, we do need money to be happy. Nothing wrong with admitting to that truth. Yes, we also need love and security and work and good health to be happy too. But what would it mean for us to also pray for “reasonable happiness?” To temper our sometimes overblown expectations about being happy and instead try and live a life of gratitude for all the God-given gifts of life, the small miracles of life. The grace-filled moments of life. The day to day ways our hearts are touched and our souls are filled as we make our way through each sacred 24 hours?

Might that make us happy too?

So here is a charge for each of us as we go out into our day and our lives. May we seek to be reasonably happy. Pray for it. Look for it. Live it. Then maybe next year we can move up from 18th place.

The Rev. John F. Hudson is senior pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn (pilgrimsherborn.org). If you have a word or idea you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org or in care of the Dover-Sherborn Press (Dover-Sherborn@wickedlocal.com).